Friday, October 28, 2005

What I want Wesleyans to Emerge As...

You can't really boil a church like mine, the Wesleyan Church, into a simple list of characteristics. There's far too much variety. So when I put down three characteristics I hope will be true of the Wesleyan Church of the future, I am neither giving you anything like a full picture of what we currently are or of what we will certainly be. I am pointing out some elements that are in the mix of our background that I think are key strengths and that, if I could create a self-fulfilling prophecy, is what we will look like in the days to come.

The three things I love about the Wesleyan Church:

1. We are pietist, not fundamentalist.

We are not really a church that feels like it has to resolve all the tensions in our faith or nail down all the details of the "right" way to do things. We follow the Spirit in the Bible far more than the letter in our interpretations. We don't argue over baptism, communion, or inerrancy, and we take as our watchword and song the words of John Wesley, "If your heart is as my heart, then put your hand in mine." Bottom line: Faith first, truth second. Don't get the wrong impression--we do believe in truth and we are interested in it. But it's more important to us that you have your heart straightened out than your head.

There's room for mystery in the Wesleyan world because, let's face it, God's really bigger than anything our feeble minds could capture or fully nail down.

Quote to hang it on: "If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand."


2. We are catholic in spirit, even though we start every discussion with the Bible
We didn't come into the world through a pure Protestant lineage. At the beginning, most Anglicans did not consider themselves part of the Protestant movement, and the Methodists from whom we emerged, emerged themselves from the Anglicans. And who wants to be defined by being a "protester" anyway? The protest is over already.

It's true that we are not Roman Catholic. We don't feel bound to later developments in the Roman church like the celebacy of clergy, purgatory, the infallibility of the pope, or abstinence from birth control. But we don't hate or fear Roman Catholics either. Every tradition has its blind spots, and the Roman Catholic tradition is no exception. But if we take into account the sheer numbers of Roman Catholics, surely there are way more "born again" Roman Catholics with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ than there are people who attend a Wesleyan Church somewhere.

I would like us to say we're more truly catholic than the Roman Catholics! We're radical catholics! For example, on baptism, most Wesleyan Churches baptize like the Baptists. But we're catholic, "universal" enough to allow for every other way of baptizing except one that would say you are automatically saved with baptism or automatically not saved if you're not baptized.

And we say, "The body of Christ" in communion and let you decide whether you believe it's just a remembrance or actually becoming the literal body of Jesus in some mysterious way. The only views we don't allow are those that would say you are automatically saved by taking communion or automatically not saved if you don't take it.

I suppose you might call such a catholic spirit a "generous orthodoxy" that emphasizes the core of the apostle's creed and is very flexible on most of the things that divide the body of Christ into denominations.

We also affirm a lot of things that aren't clear in the original meaning of the Bible. For example, the existence of a New Testament as a collection of authoritative texts came hundreds of years after the books were actually written--and we accept the New Testament. We believe in the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ even though these positions weren't fully hammered out and agreed on until the fourth and fifth centuries. We believe you are conscious between death and resurrection and that Christ's death was the end of all animal sacrifice--we believe these things even though these views are only expressed in a small part of the New Testament. They were solidified in the church that followed. And we affirm most those parts of the Bible that looked to the day when there would be neither male nor female. And that's where the church is headed too, even though some parts are stubbornly resisting :) But I know where God is taking it...

After we have noticed these things, all such discussions begin for Wesleyans with the Bible. They do not end there because the message of the books must be joined together (something we have to do from the outside looking in) and the gap must be bridged between that time and our time (something we have to do from the outside looking in). Wesley's hermeneutic was a kind of "quadrilateral" that took into account tradition, reason, and experience after starting from the Bible. But we are a people of the Book and we cherish it as a sacrament of revelation, the place God has deigned to speak, God's Word.

Quote to hang it on (the Pilgrim Holiness motto): "In essentials unity, in non-essentials charity."


3. We are Wesley-an.
Wesleyans do not worship John Wesley by any means, and we don't we limit ourselves to the boundaries of his way of thinking. But at the same time, we recognize that God said a lot of true things through this man. There are things Wesley understood that the church could sure benefit from. Here's a couple important ones:

1. prevenient grace: God's interested in you before you even know He's there. He's working on your behalf even when you couldn't care less.

2. victory over temptation: Wesley rightly understood the biblical texts to affirm victory over sin and temptation. Like the New Testament, we recognize that it is possible to "fall away," "become a cast away," etc. The New Testament affirms the importance of faithfulness to God and His holiness.

3. God wants everyone to be saved and gives everyone a chance. By God's power, everyone could in theory come to Christ. Not all will, but in some way God gives everyone a chance.

4. Holistic mission. God calls the church to work for the salvation of the world on every level. This commision includes not only the spiritual salvation of all but ministry to the poor and disempowered of the world.

Quote to hang it on: "To spread scriptural holiness throughout the land."

So this is the Wesleyan Church I belong to:

1. Pietist, not fundamentalist
2. Catholic in spirit, starting with the Bible
3. Wesley-an

12 comments:

Scott D. Hendricks said...

Dr. Schenck, you have succeeded in making me excited about being a Wesleyan.

Anonymous said...

This is so refreshing! Deep breath [sigh]...

Thank you for being bold to say these things. I was afraid our church might be etched out in a grave stone with a hardened form resistant to the future.

You have assured me it is not.

Heather Cooper said...

Question from a Free Methodist:
Do wesleyans also believe that communion can be a means of grace? If I remember correctly, Wesley held this view. The act of communion may not save you, but it can be a means that leads to salvation, correct?

Ken Schenck said...

Thanks James for your comments and more "insider" perspective. I don't know much about John Jewel (early 1500's) but I know he did not consider the English break to be of the same piece as the Lutheran break in Germany--he would have called the Anglican church more truly "catholic" than the Roman Catholic Church, which he would have said deviated from true catholicism. Similarly, since Henry VIII wrote a treatise against Luther, I doubt he would ever have called himself "Protestant."

As far as Bloody Mary is concerned, I have no doubt that she would have disagreed with all of these individuals. I have no doubt she would have denied that they were more catholic than the Roman Catholic Church. My gambit is that many Anglicans did (perhaps I should have said many rather than most), not that Mary or the Roman Catholic Church accepted their claims. And it is often joked that it was ironic that Cranmer would die as a Protestant heretic (among other charges) when he was one of the forces that worked hardest to maintain continuity with the broader church.

So I recognize that not all Anglicans agreed with these claims--in fact I think Wesley considered himself Protestant--but since I was writing a "selective history" anyway, I selected the element I believed had some merit for our future.

Ken Schenck said...

Brian,

Although our Discipline and liturgy do not emphasize the sacramental or means of grace aspect of communion, it's there and I would argue it is our position--definitely right in the center of our theological position. So I'm fudging a little to say we would allow someone to have a strictly "remembrance" view--even though in terms of the person in the pew it is functionally how most Wesleyans treat communion.

Ken Schenck said...

James, that has to be one of the best religious come backs I've heard! Spoken like a true Scot!

Kevin Wright said...

I'll "Amen" to this post! Great thoughts and an even greater reminder of why I still am a part of this denomination. People in the Wesleyan Church often do not know how well they have it. Talking with some of my friends, they have complaints about their denomination's leadership structure, lack of elasticity in doctrine, and moral lapses. Very few of these accusations could be said of the Wesleyan Church. And yes, I am prepared to defend that assertion :)

Anonymous said...

Ken, Back in the days when I was a Wesleyan, there was much talk about the doctrine of holiness or Entire Sanctification as a 2nd work of grace. Has the Holiness Movement abondoned that doctrine and moving away from it in the future. I have been out of touch with TWC for 12 or so years and now pastor a United Methodist Church in Florida.

Ken Schenck said...

Craig, TWC had a conference last May of educators and general church officials on the related subject of salvation. While I got the impression that some general officials might have been willing to alter things if the "scholars" thought it would be appropriate, the general consensus was that this was a doctrine we still believed.

Now let me say that the form that the doctrine may be taking on is possibly a little different from the past. For example, almost no one preaches entire sanctification from Acts these days. What I see happening is a strong affirmation that we can be victorious over temptation through God's power and thus live above intentional sin. Further, if we couple this idea with the (I think self-evident) belief that a Christian must be fully surrendered and committed to God, then I think we have something like an affirmation of entire sanctification:

1. A point of full surrender

2. God's offer of empowerment and victory over sin

3. The fact that many Christians are not fully surrendered nor fully empowered.

=

A point when surrender occurs and God empowers.

Anonymous said...

Ken
That is a change from the old 2nd work of grace crisis theology of the Holiness Movement. In the UMC, the evangelical wing that it, we view sanctification basically the way you have described it. I guess Keith Drury's paper given 10 years ago about the death of the Holiness Movement has come true.

Ken Schenck said...

Don't necessarily take me as the norm. I would say that I am "above average" in advocacy compared to what most Wesleyan pastors are doing. But my statements are possibly "below average" in terms of some "leadership" in educational institutions and elsewhere. Anyone else is welcome to comment!

David Drury said...

Wow... this was amazing (What I want Wesleyans to Emerge As).

Thanks so much for posting it. Sorry I missed it the first time around. I hadn't lurked here in about 3 weeks or so.

Love what you said. I'm so with you here. People need to hear this!